“I shall make no excuses for what I have done,” he said, when finally I met his eyes; “it is in every way reprehensible, and a lifetime of devotion to the duties of a clergyman cannot hope to remove the stain of my conduct. It was because of Rosie that I determined to take Holy Orders, Miss Austen, in an effort to repair my ways; and with the goal of winning forgiveness for the manner in which I have injured her, I shall work to my very last breath.”
The speech became him, in the force of conviction he threw behind it; but I was all amazement, and would know how it had occurred.
“I can only place the blame on myself,” he said, “in that I was ill-suited for the thwarting of my objectives and hopes. I had looked to my uncle for direction, and felt that in my father's absence, the Earl might be prevailed upon to make my fortune; that from him, if not from relations of my own name, I could hope for guidance in some profession. But he would have me manage the workings of his farm — a project for which, Miss Austen, I had little inclination and even less talent. In attempting to oversee the plantings, the harvests, and the tending of the beasts under Scargrave's care, however, I came much in contact with the Barlows; and with Rosie, who lived under their roof at that time in her life, having left the woman who oversaw her rearing some six years past.
“I did not intend to ruin her; I sought merely to find some comfort for the anger and bitterness in which I lived; some recompense, it may be, for all I felt I had been forced to sacrifice; and if my indulgence came at her expense, it was no more than the manner in which my uncle had seen fit to treat me. So I told myself; and so I reasoned, the better to act without remorse, in a sort of blind striking out for vengeance. But that Rosie could be the only person hurt by my conduct — that it should affect my uncle not at all — I saw too late.
“When I learned of her condition, I offered her my hand in marriage, though I knew that little good could come of such a union.”
“Rosie would not accept you?” I asked gently.
“My uncle could not accept her,” he rejoined, with an expression of grimness, “much to Jenny Barlow's horror and the anger of her husband, Ted. Though they knew me to be so far removed from their sister's station, they had still hoped for the preservation of her respectability, if not the elevation of her place in life. My name only they wished to have, that the child might be known as its father's; for Rosie to live quietly at some remove, supported and free of the world's censure, was their only aim. That I might have sacrificed my hopes to their necessity seemed only to be justice; and so I was prepared to do, but for my uncle.”
“You spoke to him of this,” I said, understanding coming full upon me, “on the night of his death.”
“I did,” George Hearst replied, with some astonishment at my perspicacity, “though I thought none could know of it. My uncle was utterly unaware of Rosie's ruin — I had placed her with Mrs. Hammond through my cousin Fitzroy's good offices, the better to keep the Earl in the dark — and when the fact of her condition was made plain, along with my intention to remedy it through the sacrifice of my prospects, my uncle was thrown into a cold rage. The disgrace— the violation of a sacred trust, in the seduction of a Scargrave dependent — and the impropriety, in one who aspired, as I did, to the Church — all were cause for dismay on the Earl's part. He very nearly sent me from the Manor entirely; but it ended instead with his forbidding me to have anything further to do with the girl.”
“And with his decision to alter his will,” I surmised, “by retracting that promise he had so recently made you, of receiving a living upon his death. How fortunate for you, Mr. Hearst, that he should be taken from this life before he had time to call his solicitors!”
A quick glance from the cleric's hollow eyes, a look eloquent in its anguish. “The denial of the living was as nothing, Miss Austen, when weighed against the denial of Rosie. Only consider that her young life should be blighted in consequence of my sin; that her future should be sacrificed upon the altar of my uncle's pride! I could not bear it. I had determined, when I left him in the library, to go to Rosie at once, and marry her. Scargrave be damned!”
Except that you were saved the trouble, I thought, your uncle's death having, like Fate, intervened. The Earl's sudden passage had allowed George Hearst to achieve his dearest aims — the preservation of his beloved's honour, and the awarding of his dearest wish, a clergyman's living. But I kept such thoughts to myself.
“And now tell me, Miss Austen,” the gentleman said, “how came you to know all of this? Or did you merely hazard some well-researched guesses?”
I had the grace to blush. “I overheard your conversation in the library that evening — some few words.”
George Hearst looked his surprise. “I was not aware of it. I confess that I was distraught, and left the library in great perturbation of mind.”
“And now that the Earl is dead,” I said, “what is to become of Rosie?”
“When I journeyed to London Christmas Eve, it was with the intent of marrying her; and so I have done,” the curate told me. “Rosie is to remain with her grandmother^ and the babe to be reared here for some years. Afterwards, it shall be sent away to school, in an anonymous fashion, to receive the education of a gentleman's child.”
“Rosie is indeed fortunate,” I told him. “She is yet young, and might, with proper care and education, make you a suitable wife, Mr. Hearst. In a living far from Scargrave, where her antecedents are not known, you might yet attain tolerable happiness.”
“I have not learned to look that far beyond the present moment,” he said thoughtfully. “Much remains to be resolved.”
It was then I remembered — if Fitzroy Payne hanged, George Hearst should become the Earl. What a burden this wife should then be felt! For he should be barred from seeking a suitable partner to his new estate, of fortune and standing in the peerage, and must acknowledge Rosie's babe as his heir. I understood, now, his inveterate melancholy; George Hearst's was a fate that seemed ever destined to turn awry.
I RETURNED TO PORTMAN SQUARE IN SOME PERPLEXITY OF thought. I had learned much in recent days of the private lives of Fanny Delahoussaye and George Hearst — had ever a great family been so determined in bastardy? — but nothing that proved useful, on the face of it, to Isobel's cause. The trial was to take place on the ninth of January, making it less than six days that remained to us. More than my circumspect probing was required, if the Countess's innocence was to be shown; and I felt impatience, of a sudden, for the return of Mr. Cranley from Pall Mall, and such assistance as the valet Danson could offer.
Chapter 19
A Matter for Cashierment
5 January 1803
IT WAS NOT MR. CRANLEY I WAS TO SEE IN THE SCARGRAVE House drawing-room the following morning, however, but my dear Eliza — and with her, brother Henry, only recently become a banker after a turn with the Oxfordshire militia.
“Jane, Jane!” he cried, embracing me heartily; “I understand you have run away from brother James and his scolding wife these several weeks, and got yourself into worse scandal than before! A broken engagement, and now a murder trial? What shall people say? That Miss Jane Austen is become an Adventuress, and is not to be seen in polite society?”
“Nonsense, Henry,” Eliza said briskly; “Jane but seizes her chance for amusement when it is offered, as ever you would do; there is very little to choose between you, but your sex and the freedom it apportions to one and not the other. Were you not both possessed of lively spirits and unconventional tastes, I should have spurned the Austens entirely, and be still resident in France, toying tenderly with one of Buonaparte's generals.”